Hanning & Kahl
Hanning & Kahl is a German family-owned manufacturer of hydraulic braking systems and rail infrastructure control technology for trams, light rail vehicles and metros, headquartered in Oerlinghausen, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Hanning & Kahl was founded in Bielefeld in 1898 and has been based in nearby Oerlinghausen since 1992. The company remains fully owned by the founding Hanning family, now in its fourth generation.
Around 500 employees work at the Oerlinghausen site. According to the company, its export share was approximately 68 percent in 2025, supported by service subsidiaries in the United States and China and a network of 28 representatives outside Germany.
Braking systems for urban rail
The Rolling Stock Division develops and produces hydraulic braking systems, track brakes, hydraulic levelling systems and sanding systems for trams, light rail and metro vehicles. According to its own history, the company launched the world’s first hydraulic braking system for rail vehicles in 1959 — an early specialisation within rolling stock components that it has maintained since.
The portfolio is modular: spring-applied actuators and brake calipers, brake cylinders, active calipers, hydraulic units for multi-stage and stepless brake control, and microprocessor-controlled brake controllers. The modules are combined into vehicle-specific braking concepts for 100 and 70 percent low-floor trams, high-floor vehicles and metro systems.
Complementary product lines include the GripMaster sanding system, which feeds quartz sand into the wheel–rail contact to maintain adhesion in adverse conditions, and ConnAct, a system for remote monitoring and diagnosis of brake and infrastructure components.
Certification and customers
Hanning & Kahl holds certification to the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS), now published as ISO 22163. According to the company, its brake systems are in service in trams, light rail vehicles, metros and people movers worldwide.
Customers are primarily vehicle builders and urban rail operators. In 2019, the company supplied brake equipment for 18 low-floor trams built by the Spanish manufacturer CAF for the Mauritius Metro Express, equipping each of the three motor bogies with four calipers and a hydraulic unit, and the trailer bogie with a further four calipers, its own hydraulic unit and the brake control unit.
A separate Infrastructure Division supplies point-setting systems, point controllers, signalling installations and depot management systems for tram and light rail networks.
Current activity
Hanning & Kahl has announced its participation at InnoTrans 2026 in Berlin. Ongoing infrastructure work includes control technology for the Citybahn tram line under construction in Essen, delivered by the Infrastructure Division.
